Golden

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

Hope for the future. That is what children are. That is what they are supposed to be. I wonder why noone ever told my mother that. Or my father. Today I was reminded that I am seen as someone that noone expects anything from. Today I was reminded that that what has always been expected of me. Today my feelings and being went way back to when I was a child. I had forgotten that. I had been living in the dream world that my parents see me as a success. I forgot and got hurt with just a simple question from my father.

I used to cry inside when I was smaller. Noone could see any tears on the outside, but I was sobbing on the inside. The sobbing was so audible I could hear it. I often wondered why noone else could hear it or see me crying. I had to keep it in. Noone cared. Noone would dry those tears. So it was better to keep it in.

I was never a hope for the future. I realized that at a very early age. I realized that children were supposed to be hope for the future. I was so sad. My accomplishments were never recognized by my parents. I worked harder and studied longer just to get straight A's. I did everything right to get their approval. Nothing worked. I never got it. I still don't have it.

I remember being in all the honor classes in grade school and high school. When I got to college I was on the deans list for about 3 years. Still that was not good enough. My freshman year I was not on it.. the adjustment to college life. I transfered schools my sophomore year and it was smooth sailing after that. When I got my grades and I todl my parents I was on the dean's list, the only response I got was, "You should have studied harder last year."

When it came time to graduate there was a mix up with the transfer credits and graduation suddenly turned into graduation hell. All had been fine, my credits had been counted and everything was on track. Then the fateful day came when I had the last check before graduation and all of a sudden the school decided not accept 3 credits. Invitations were sent, cards were already arriving for me in the mailbox full of money and congratulations from distant relatives. It was 2 weeks before graduation and due to some paperwork error not my fault I was not going to graduate because I suddenly had to take an elective for 3 credits. I was crushed and embarrased and distraught beyond belief. I was not going to take that walk in my white evening gown and carry those roses to get my diploma. Not that May.

I told my mom what was happening to see if she could help with the problem. She did not. Her response, "I knew you would not graduate." I cried a river of tears. No, a lake, an ocean. I did have a boyfriend at the time and I asked him to take me away the weekend of graduation. He was the only one who understood how devastated I was. It was all about the 3 minute walk across that stage to get that diploma. When I got back to town I had to face all my relatives who went to the graduation expecting to see me and my name was not called. I did get thru that summer. In the fall I signed up for an elective course and got my diploma in December.

I have done well in life. I have started graduate school....still trying to finish. I have always had great jobs that paid well. (40K and up) I have a great job well. But still that is not even recognized at all by my parents. It was not expected of me and noone cares that I did any of those things. Now my brother, who dropped out of college, works in retail and does not have a career of any stable sorts...he is golden. How can he be golden? Gold is supposed to be the best of the best and he is not. How can he be the golden one in their eyes? I am truly golden according to all the things/opportunites they presented to my brother and I. I did them all. And well. He did not complete anything but he is golden.

Gold escapes me. Gold mystifies me. Why is gold not me?

See. In my world I am golden. I view myself as that. It only takes one holiday family get together to have the reality of them set in. I have been writing stories and poetry for years and have done some writing submissions over the years. I recall years ago, I had gotten some rejections letters (the sign of a true writer) and I mentioned them to my mother. Her response," Maybe if you had some journalism background or took some courses your writing would be good enough, but you won't publish anything." (Did she not pay attention to any of my college courses as to what I took?) I did not respond to her but it hurt me to the quick. Little did she know that I was already a published author. Had been since college. I had told her that then but I guess she forgot. My accomplishments are clearly not remembered at all.

What brought it all back this Christmas? Well, I write a family newsletter that I send out to friends and relatives every christmas. I include it in all the christmas cards I send. It is the year in review. I mentioned that I was working on a novel. My father read that and asked very sacrastically, "Where is your book?" He laughed at the end. I just looked at him very seriously and said, " it was on my computer. It is a very large word document on my computer." He did not say anything else.

Then the very next question came to my mind. Why the hell am I wasting my holidays with them? I could be going on trips and cruises for Christmas. It would be better for me. Next year that is what I am doing. My family and I are not going home for the gathering at grandparents. We are having our own Christmas away, and it and I will be golden. 100% golden!

Just a Few Things...

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

Time to start thinking about what I want for christmas. Sounds like I am late right? Christmas is next week. Well, I really do not want alot. Just a few good books and some music and a laptop and a new cell phone. That is about all. Oh--and a new mayor for New Orleans. This year I have waited so late I know that I will be shopping on Christmas eve. Boy I hate that. Normally I get it all done by December 15th. That is normally my goal. This year it is all determied by how the paycheck falls. My next one is next week, so late shopping it is. I just hate to get out in that throbbing throng of people in the malls. I hate that Christmas rush. The crazies are out. All sorts of odd people you never see until Christmas. You wonder what rocks they were all living under.

These are the books I want. I just heard that the Postsecret book is out. I love going to that site and seeing the secrets of others there. Some are just plain scary. I also want Freakonomics. I hear that Diane Sawyer gives it to everyone she knows. It has been featured on GMA once. It does sound interesting.

As far as music I want some Trans-Siberian Orchestra. Love them! I have been listening to my friends cd. I have to get my own now. Wizard in Winter is now my favorite theme song!

The other cd I want is Nancy Wilson Christmas. It is all jazz and fabulous. She has a version of Carol of the Bells on it that is out of this world! Man, that is a good cd.

Now as for the new mayor for New Orleans. That will be a tall order for santa to fill. After the news I saw on yesterday where he wants to hold the Mardi Gras in 2006, I was flabbergasted to say the least. What the hell is he thinking?! Nothing! Obviously nothing. His thoughts:

City officials announced last month that New Orleans would hold an abbreviated Mardi Gras celebration. Civic boosters say the festivities can help revitalize New Orleans' economy, lift morale and show the world that the city is on its way back.

In addition to scaling the two-week Carnival season to eight days, the cash-strapped city is seeking corporate sponsors for the first time.

Ray Nagin has some residents seeing red and I would too. If people are still displaced, living in hotels and Fema trailer parks, Mardi Gras will not help get them homes or places to live. I am in agreement with the residents. Having to deal with some Katrina evacuees via my job, Mr. Nagins' prioirities are very misplaced. Help the people first, then help the tourists party. Have the party AFTER the people have been helped. He has the cart before the horse. In the words of some of the members of my bible study class this morning, he is an idiot and is of no account!

Some storm refugees and black organizations say the party preparations are insensitive to the plight of so many displaced New Orleanians.

Protest held Monday

''I just think it sends the wrong message to have a celebration when people are not back in their houses,'' said Ernest Johnson, the Louisiana president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

At a protest Monday of a few Katrina evacuees in Atlanta, where the New Orleans Saints were playing, ChiQuita Simms said reconstruction should take precedence over partying.

''I'm not against Mardi Gras,'' said Simms, who has been living in an Atlanta hotel with her 14-year-old son. ''I'm against their priorities.'' She added: ''What you can do is guarantee me in two months you're going have a Mardi Gras, but you can't guarantee life will be back on?''

Come on Ray! You can do better than that! He is an embarrassment.

A Lump of Coal

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

I remember the christmas I was in second grade. I was attending the same elementary school my mother taught school at. She was not my teacher like she was when I was in first grade. That was a blessing. I guess my brother and I had been kind of mischievious that year. We asked Santa for all the toys and things we wanted to have. We went to sleep that christmas eve and after having great difficulty falling asleep, we finally drifted off.

We woke up the next morning, and we had to get washed up, dressed and eat breakfast before running to the christmas tree in the living room. We had so much to do that my brother and I would rush as fast as we could go get thru breakfast. My mother would not even let us peek at the tree.

Finally breakfast was over and we ran to the living room. We saw toys for both of us but in front of it all was a big red bag....a large red bag with about 10 yard sticks sticking out of it. It was a bag of switches. Santa had bought us a bag of switches because we had been bad. I looked at my brother and he looked at me. We both looked at my mother and father. They just shrugged like they did not know what it was all about.

We looked in the bag of switches first and mom said it was a warning. Santa had bought us toys and switches as a warning to be good. My mom said that he only gave one warning. The next year if we were bad we would get just a bag of coal and no toys. Needless to say, my brother and I have never forgetten that christmas and we never got a bag of coal.

Now in this day and time I do not think a bag of switches will work. My child knows about the lump of coal so I plan to make up a nice pretty red package with a nice big bow on it filled with charcoal. This will be given with a note about good behavior and character along with presents. I have also found a great stocking stuffer as well called Lump of Coal bubble gum. That will be going into the stockings this year. Yes, there is a Santa Claus checking to see if you have been naughty or nice!

Stanley Tookie Williams

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

On February 28, 1979, about 4 a.m., Williams and three friends got high on their psychedelic smokes and took two cars, a 12-gauge shotgun and a .22-caliber handgun to Pomona in search of a place to rob, according to court documents. They ended up at a 7-Eleven where Albert Owens, 26, was working the overnight shift, sweeping the parking lot.

The military veteran was a "redheaded, freckle-faced kid who had the biggest smile you wanted to see," according to his older brother, Wayne Owens, 55, of Olathe, Kansas.

Albert Owens said, "Take everything you want," says the now-retired prosecutor, Robert Martin, who remembers the case in detail.

Williams ordered Owens into a back room at gunpoint, shot out a security monitor, then ordered, "Get down on your knees, (expletive)," and shot him twice in the back, according to testimony. Williams "later laughed about it as he was eating his hamburger," Martin says.

There were no witnesses other than accomplices.

Less than two weeks later, on March 11, Williams broke down the door at the Brookhaven Motel, ripping through four locks and shattering the molding, according to a prosecutor.

Killed were Yen-I Yang, 76; his wife, Tsai-Shai Yang, 63, and their visiting daughter, Yee-Chen Lin, 43. The Taiwanese immigrants were about to sell the business because the neighborhood had become too rough, Martin said.

Again, there were no surviving witnesses. Three of Williams' friends -- all with criminal histories and motivation to lie, Williams says -- testified that he confessed to them. A ballistics expert linked a shotgun shell at the motel to Williams' gun.

Williams maintains he's innocent despite several unsuccessful appeals.

His conviction took him off the street, but failed to halt the growth of the Crips he had founded in 1971 when he and Raymond Washington, a high school friend, formed a gang they called the Cribs. Drunken members routinely mispronounced it as "Crips" and the misnomer stuck.

From behind bars he watched as the neighborhood gang he helped form grew into a nationwide, drug-dealing criminal organization responsible for thousands of deaths. One of his two sons, Stanley Williams Jr., joined the gang and is now serving time for second-degree murder.

Prison officials said recently that they believe the elder Williams is still involved in the gang, calling shots from the prison, though they acknowledged they don't have hard evidence.

"A con always will say one thing to you while the whole time he has another agenda," prison spokesman Vernell Crittendon said. "I'm concerned that possibly this marketing that's going on ... leads the public to hear the words, but not to see that sleight of hand."

First and most importantly, he says, he developed a conscience. He read everything he could get his hands on -- the Bible, the dictionary, a thesaurus. He studied languages, theology, philosophy. He struggled to understand his past.

He said he was consumed with pain and guilt "for the lives of all the Crips who had died, for the innocent black lives hurt in the crossfire, for the decades of young lives ruined for a causeless cause."

By 1992, he was a changed man, he says. His courage, once based on violence and indifference, now was based on faith and redemption, he says.

"The majority of the detractors and naysayers ... it's difficult for them to recognize the redemption," he says.

But to family members of one of his victims, the campaign to save Williams distracts from the cold-blooded crimes he was convicted of while terrorizing Los Angeles.

Stanley "Tookie" Williams' life will not be spared, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced Monday afternoon (December 12), denying the convicted murderer and former gang leader's appeal for clemency less than 12 hours before his scheduled execution.

"Clemency cases are always difficult and this one is no exception," Schwarzenegger said in a statement following his announcement. "After studying the evidence, searching the history, listening to the arguments and wrestling with the profound consequences, I could find no justification for granting clemency. The facts do not justify overturning the jury's verdict or the decisions of the courts in this case."

The governor held a clemency hearing on Thursday with Williams' lawyers and Los Angeles prosecutors. Each side had 30 minutes to plead their case on whether or not the Crips co-founder's life should be spared (see "Schwarzenegger Meets With Tookie Williams' Lawyers").

Schwarzenegger was Williams' last hope to stay alive, as the California Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Sunday against granting him a stay of execution, saying each of the nine claims he brought forth lacked merit (see "California Supreme Court Rejects Tookie Williams' Appeal"). A federal appeals court also ruled on Monday that it would not block Tuesday's scheduled execution. During a press conference Friday, Schwarzenegger called the decision of William's clemency "a very heavy responsibility."

After hearing the news, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, a vocal supporter and friend of Williams, said Schwarzenegger made the decision for purely political reasons. He added that he believes the five-time Nobel Peace Prize nominee has earned clemency based on his meaningful contributions to society, by staving off at-risk youth from following his path into gang life.

During a meeting with Williams earlier that morning, Jackson told CNN that his friend seemed to possess a sense of inner peace. "He said he did not fear evil. He did not fear hurt," he said, adding that they had also said a prayer together.

Williams, who was convicted in 1981 of the murders of four people stemming from two separate robbery incidents in 1979, is set to die by lethal injection one minute after midnight at San Quentin State Prison. There is no word yet on who will be at the execution, but CNN reported that a few of Williams' family members, two spiritual advisors and members of the victims' families will most likely be present.

In earlier interviews, Williams seemed to have already accepted his fate. "I am not the kind of person to sit around and worry about being executed," Williams told Reuters in November. "I'm sure there are detractors who would like to hear that I am weeping ... [but] I fear nothing except God. My hope lies in [God] above anything and everything else. I have faith and if it doesn't go my way, it doesn't go my way."

Williams is said to have spent Monday morning in a visiting room with advisors, attorneys, family and friends. He will be moved into a special holding cell at 6 p.m., where he will be served his optional last meal.

Williams' case has rekindled the debate between those who support and oppose capital punishment. Meanwhile, Williams himself has remained fairly quiet on the matter, instead letting his high-profile backers speak for him. Among them are Jackson, rapper Snoop Dogg, who held a protest in San Quentin in support of his longtime friend (see "Snoop Tries To Get Crips Co-Founder Off Real Death Row"), and Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx, who portrayed the convict in the TV movie "Redemption: The Tookie Williams Story."

Ultra Man

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

Thinking of Don Ho made me think of Ultra Man. I grew up with him too. Everyday after school UltraMan was on. I lived for that show. I remember being devastated when the show ended and he died. Teh show that stands out in my mind the most was the show where kids were drawing with chalk in the school yard...animals on the sidewalk. When the school day was over, all the kids went home and due to radiation from the sun they all came to life. Ultra man has to fight them all. The saddest one was the very last monster. He was nice and he had a squeak to him. He did not die. He just walked away into the sunset full of radiation and disappeared, squeaking as he went.

UltraMan had several weaknesses. When his energy was low after a fight, the light on his chest would begin to blink . He would have to go to the sun to recharge.

About Ultra Man

Ultraman is the generic name for a series of Japanese live-action television shows produced between 1966 and 1998. Each series focused on at least one extraterrestrial "Ultra-hero" who arrives on Earth to fight various large monsters. Conveniently, each Ultra-hero can grow to over 200 feet tall. Each Ultra-hero had various energy emission powers, plus were experts in some form of hand-to-hand martial arts-style fighting. Virtually all of them also had one weakness: their energy would run out after a short time fighting. (Strangely enough, when this happened, they tended to "get serious" and use their most energy-draining attack on the monster(s).) When they weren't fighting monsters, they typically assumed the form of a human; each one either created their own human form, or merged with one (or, in one case, two) humans.

The Ultraman series are produced by Tsuburaya Productions. Tsuburaya Productions was started by Eiji Tsuburaya, the special effects master behind the early Godzilla films. His sons have carried on the tradition to this day.

The Ultraman concept began with a series concept called "Woo." The series featured a hero code-named Redman. This series concept was shelved when another series, Unbalance, was accepted. This series eventually became Ultra Q. The Woo/Redman concept, however, continued to be refined into the first Ultraman.

Don Ho

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

Who doesn't remember Don Ho? I grew up with him. My mother loved him. His variety show used to come on everyday after school. We would all gather round the tele to watch him sing timey bubble. He sang that everyday. It was his theme song. I had not thought about him I years until I saw this article. I remember even having a crush on him. He was very cute in his early years. Check out his website here: Don Ho Website.

Whenever we watched his show, it was like we had a little piece of Hawaii wherever we were. I wish him well and I sure do hope that the can get that pacemaker regulated. Sounds like it is not properly adjusted as of yet. Don Ho, he was the best!


Cnn
Legendary Hawaiian crooner Don Ho was recovering Tuesday at a hospital in Thailand after undergoing an experimental stem cell procedure on his ailing heart.

Ho, 75, known for his signature tune "Tiny Bubbles," underwent a new treatment that has not been approved in the United States. It involves multiplying stem cells taken from his blood and injecting them into his heart in hopes of strengthening the organ, according to Ed Brown, a close friend.

After the treatment, Ho's vital signs were excellent, but he remained seriously ill and was in the hospital's intensive care unit, Brown said in a telephone interview from his home in Malibu, California.

Ho, who has entertained tourists for more than four decades, has suffered from heart problems for about a year and had a pacemaker implanted a few months ago.

In August, Ho was admitted to a hospital with shortness of breath. He was treated for an abnormal heart rhythm and released after three days. He soon returned to his Waikiki show on a reduced schedule.

"He felt well enough, but his pacer sometimes would go off in his chest and scare the hell out of him," Brown said. "That's a difficult thing to live with right in the middle of 'Tiny Bubbles.' "

Besides "Tiny Bubbles," Ho's other hits include "I'll Remember You," "With All My Love" and the "Hawaiian Wedding Song."

Carnivals

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

Check out the Best of Me Symphony #106!

Cindy Sheehan To Release a Book

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

AP - After spending scorching August days with hundreds of war protesters at her makeshift camp near President Bush’s Crawford ranch, Cindy Sheehan slipped away each night to her tent or RV for a few quiet moments on her laptop.

Full Story Here!

Who is in agreement with her? Let me know.